14 Afghani Women & Children, 2 men Killed & More Wounded by U.S. Soldier
Panjwai, Afghanistan -- March 12, 2012 U.S. Army sergeant broke into homes of innocent civilians and began slaughtering them in cold blood, according to news releases from that area today.
This is what we know so far (and more tonight on Islam Newsroom LIVE on www.GuideUS.TV)
9 Children, 3 Women & 2 Men Are Dead, Many More Wounded by One U.S. Soldier in South Afghanistan Sunday.
A U.S. soldier broke down doors, burst into huts and blasted poor villagers, killing and wounding as many as he could.
Afghanistan President, Hamid Karzai, called it "assassinations" and quickly demanded Washington to come up with some kind of explanation. Nine of those killed were small children, three were women and two were old men. Many more were wounded but that count is not yet confirmed.
U.S. soldier burst into homes of villagers close to his military base in south Afghanistan yesterday (Sunday March 11, 2012). He killed (I'm sorry - when it's not Muslims you have to say "allegedly killed") anyway, allegedly killed 14 women and children and two men.
A U.S. soldier is now being detained in a facility at NATO. He is suspected of being a lone shooter in this incident, according to authorities there at NATO.
This story is too hard to report and far too bizarre to understand, yet this is our job and we'll do our best to get the real details and report LIVE on www.GuideUS.TV tonight (inshallah).
Please consider this - if we don't have our own voice in America, then what information would we really have?? --
READ . .
This is the way the media is telling the story --
The killing spree deepened a crisis between US forces and their Afghan hosts over Americans burning Muslim holy books on a base in Afghanistan last month. The burnings sparked weeks of violent protests and attacks that left some 30 dead. Six US service members have been killed by their Afghan colleagues since the Koran burnings came to light, but the violence had just started to calm down.
"This is an assassination, an intentional killing of innocent civilians and cannot be forgiven," Karzai said in a statement. He said he has repeatedly demanded the US stop killing Afghan civilians.
Her grandchild lies there - dead. A victim of what? Why?
We want answers. And we can do it right here (leave your comments at bottom of page) And use Facebook too!
Deadly .... Anar Gul points to the body of her grandchild, who was allegedly killed by a US soldier. Photo: AP
President Barack Obama called the attack "tragic and shocking" and offered his condolences to the families of those killed. In a statement released by the White House, he vowed ‘‘to get the facts as quickly as possible and to hold accountable anyone responsible’’.
The violence over the Koran burnings has spurred calls in the US for a faster exit strategy from the 10-year-old Afghan war. President Obama even said recently that "now is the time for us to transition". But he also said he had no plan to change the current timetable that has Afghans taking control of security countrywide by the end of 2014.
In the wake of the Koran burnings, the top US commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, visited troops at a base that was attacked last month and urged them not to give in to the impulse for revenge.
The tensions between the two countries had appeared to be easing as recently as Friday, when the US and Afghan governments signed a memorandum of understanding about the transfer of Afghan detainees to Afghan control - a key step toward an eventual strategic partnership to govern U.S. forces in the country.
But Sunday's shooting could push that agreement further away.
"This is a fatal hammer blow on the US military mission in Afghanistan. Whatever sliver of trust and credibility we might have had following the burnings of the Koran is now gone," said David Cortright, the director of policy studies at Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and an advocate for a quick withdrawal from Afghanistan.
"This may have been the act of a lone, deranged soldier. But the people of Afghanistan will see it for what it was, a wanton massacre of innocent civilians," Cortright said.
The attack began about 3am in two villages in Panjwai, a rural suburb of Kandahar and a traditional Taliban stronghold where coalition forces have fought for control for years. The villages — Balandi and Alkozai — are about 500 metres from a US base.
The gunman went into three houses and opened fire, said a resident of Alkozai, Abdul Baqi, citing accounts from his neighbours.
"When it was happening in the middle of the night, we were inside our houses. I heard gunshots and then silence and then gunshots again," Baqi said.
Eleven of those killed were members of one family, many of them women and children.
An AP photographer saw 15 bodies in the two villages caught up in the shooting. Some of the bodies had been burned, while others were covered with blankets. A young boy partially wrapped in a blanket was in the back of a minibus, dried blood crusted on his face and pooled in his ear. His loose-fitting brown pants were partly burned, revealing a leg charred by fire. It was unclear how or why the bodies were burned.
Villagers packed inside the minibus looked on with concern as a woman spoke to reporters. She pulled back a blanket to reveal the body of a smaller child wearing what appeared to be red pyjamas. A third dead child lay amid a pile of green blankets in the bed of a truck.
Some villagers questioned whether a single soldier could have killed so many people. But a US official in Washington said the American, an Army staff sergeant, was believed to have acted alone and that initial reports indicated he returned to the base after the shooting and turned himself in.
Five people were shot in the pre-dawn attack in Kandahar province, including a 15-year-old boy named Rafiullah who was shot in the leg and spoke to Karzai over the telephone. He described how the American soldier entered his house in the middle of the night, woke up his family and began shooting them, according to Karzai's statement.
NATO officials apologised for the shootings but did not confirm that anyone was killed, referring instead to reports of deaths.
"This deeply appalling incident in no way represents the values of ISAF and coalition troops or the abiding respect we feel for the Afghan people," Allen said in a statement, using the abbreviation for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
He pledged a "rapid and thorough investigation" and vowed to ensure that "anyone who is found to have committed wrongdoing is held fully accountable".
Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said Mr Obama was briefed on the shooting.
"We are deeply concerned by the initial reports of this incident, and are monitoring the situation closely," she said.
NATO spokesman Justin Brockhoff said a US service member had been detained at a NATO base as the alleged shooter. The wounded people were evacuated to NATO medical facilities, he added.
International forces have fought for control of Panjwai for years as they've tried to subdue the Taliban in their rural strongholds. The Taliban movement started just to the north of Panjwai and many of the militant group's senior leaders, including chief Mullah Omar, were born, raised, fought or preached in the area. Omar once ran an Islamic school in an area of Panjwai that has since been carved into a new district.
In addition to its symbolic significance, the district is an important base for the Taliban to target the city of Kandahar to the east. Panjwai was seen as key to securing Kandahar city when US forces flooded the province as part of Obama's strategy to surge in the south starting in 2009.
Twelve of the dead were from Balandi, said Samad Khan, a farmer who lost all 11 members of his family, including women and children. Khan was away from the village when the incident occurred and returned to find his family members shot and burned. One of his neighbours was also killed, he said.
"This is an anti-human and anti-Islamic act," said Khan. "Nobody is allowed in any religion in the world to kill children and women."
Khan and other villagers demanded that Karzai punish the American shooter.
"Otherwise we will make a decision," said Khan. "He should be handed over to us."
The four people killed in the village of Alkozai were all from one family, said a female relative who was shouting in anger. She did not give her name because of the conservative nature of local society.
"No Taliban were here. No gunbattle was going on," said the woman. "We don't know why this foreign soldier came and killed our innocent family members. Either he was drunk or he was enjoying killing civilians."
The Taliban called the shootings the latest sign that international forces are working against the Afghan people.
"The so-called American peace keepers have once again quenched their thirst with the blood of innocent Afghan civilians in Kandahar province," the Taliban said in a statement posted on a website used by the insurgent group.
Karzai said he was sending a high-level delegation to investigate.
OK that's the way the media has the story now - Our conclusion on Guide US TV is - patience and perserverance! That is what Islam teaches us. We know all of this is a test from Allah and we can NEVER take the law into our hands - NEVER.
So remind each other about Surah Al Asr - and read it again and again until it comes to you the true answer from Islam. This is not for us to hate and kill and strike back. It is the time to prove the real character of our prophet, peace be upon him. He suffered so much, but never did he act from his own emotions or inflict punishment on others without due process of law and fair justice.
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